Expert Tax Accountants in Courtenay

For the 2025 tax year the filing and payment deadline is 30 April 2026. If you or your spouse carried on a business, the return itself is due 15 June 2026, but any balance owing is still due 30 April 2026. Interest runs on unpaid amounts after the payment deadline, and a late-filed return with a balance owing also attracts a late-filing penalty. Filing on time keeps benefit and credit payments flowing.

Call the individual or business enquiries line published on the CRA contact page at canada.ca. Have your social insurance number or business number, your date of birth and a figure from a recent return ready, because the agent verifies your identity before discussing anything. Lines are busiest just after filing season opens and near deadlines, so early morning usually connects faster. You can also send a secure message from My Account, or authorise a representative to call on your behalf.

Canada uses a basic personal amount rather than an exemption. For 2026 it is $16,452, tapering to $14,829 as net income runs from $181,440 to $258,482. It works as a non-refundable credit, so income up to that level attracts no federal tax, and each province sets its own equivalent amount. Separately, CPP contributions for 2026 ignore the first $3,500 of pensionable earnings; that basic exemption belongs to payroll, not to income tax.

In British Columbia the 2026 rates are 5% GST and 7% PST, and each is calculated on the selling price rather than on the other tax. On a $100 sale that is $5 GST plus $7 PST, so $112 in total. The two taxes have separate registrations, returns and rules, so some goods and services are PST-exempt while still carrying GST. Only the GST paid on business inputs is recoverable as an input tax credit; PST generally is not.

Some services only. BC's 7% PST reaches legal services, telecommunication services, accommodation, and work performed on goods such as repair, maintenance and installation. Many other services, including most professional and consulting fees, fall outside PST, though the 5% GST still applies to them. Because the list is specific rather than general, check the province's PST bulletin for your line of work before you register, charge tax or price a quote.

For the 2025 tax year the balance was due 30 April 2026, including for self-employed filers whose return itself was not due until 15 June 2026. Interest runs on anything unpaid after that date and compounds daily, so the amount grows while you wait. If you cannot pay in full, contact the CRA to set up a payment arrangement; it does not stop interest, but it holds off collection action while you keep to it.

The speculation and vacancy tax applies to residential property inside British Columbia's designated taxable regions, so whether a bare parcel is caught turns on how that land is classed and on the exemptions available for undeveloped land. Owners in a taxable region must complete the annual declaration even when an exemption applies, or the tax is assessed by default. Check the province's speculation and vacancy tax pages for the current exemption list, and confirm the classification shown on your assessment notice.

Each spouse files a separate T1 and is taxed on their own income; there is no joint return and no married filing rate. You do report each other's net income, because the couple's combined income sets benefits such as the Canada child benefit and GST/HST credit, and it drives the spousal amount and pooled medical or donation claims. Pension income splitting, spousal RRSP contributions and prescribed-rate loans are the usual ways couples shift income legitimately.

The duty to declare does not depend on the letter arriving. If you own residential property in a designated area of British Columbia and no declaration package reached you, contact the provincial speculation and vacancy tax office, get your identification numbers and declare before the annual deadline. Missing the declaration has you assessed at the highest rate for your situation, which you then have to unwind. Update your mailing address and keep proof of the declaration.

Yes. GST at 5% applies to taxi and ride-share fares in British Columbia, and BC PST does not apply to the fare itself. Taxi and commercial ride-sharing operators cannot use the $30,000 small-supplier threshold for 2026, so they must register and charge GST from their first fare however small the business. The tax is usually built into the metered or app-quoted price rather than added at the end of the trip.

You can, but the appeal targets your assessed value rather than the tax rate. File with the provincial assessment review body named on your assessment notice before the deadline printed there, which is strictly applied. Build the case on comparable sales, on assessments of similar nearby properties, or on factual errors such as wrong floor area or lot size. A lower assessment lowers the bill; the municipal rate itself cannot be appealed.

No. Income tax, CPP contributions and EI premiums are three separate deductions taken from pay and remitted together, each in its own box on a T4. Only the income tax withheld is credited against the tax your return calculates and refunded if too much was taken. The CPP and EI amounts still do work of their own: employee EI premiums and the base part of CPP contributions give non-refundable credits, and the enhanced part of the CPP contribution is a deduction from income.